


From the Cradle to the Grave.

by Zee_Seal



Category: Thief (Video Game Original Series), Thief (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, I wrote this out of spite and boredom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:40:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27451381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zee_Seal/pseuds/Zee_Seal
Summary: The downfall of the Shalebridge Cradle. As told through the eyes of a cynical, fire-starting patient.
Kudos: 5





	From the Cradle to the Grave.

**Author's Note:**

> Please note this is fan-fiction and I'm filling in the blanks how I please/see fit to make the story work. I tried to keep close to the original events that took place in the series but I'm not 100 percent accurate. I know I'm either missing or skimming over some lore. It's mostly a creative take on the whole history of the Shalebridge Cradle. Also I wrote this all in one sitting without editing or double checking many things, so if it's not 100 percent perfect I apologize.
> 
> I do have personal head-canons about all the patients at Shalebridge too. Which I'll probably link in the near future. Most of it's covered in this, though, however, but feel free to ask about my little stories for them all.

It was always cold in the Cradle.

I never could get a good night's sleep in that building. The wind would howl through the old walls and made the whole building creak and rattle. Like The Builder himself was trying to shake it off it's unfit, heretical foundations. If it wasn't the wind keeping me up, it was the wailing of my fellow inmates. Some of them would be crying, making a fit well into the night and early morn.

Or the sound of that damned warped musical Victrola that the Dancer had. She played it at all hours, it seemed like. It's a bent needle playing awful noises on her few records.

She wasn’t the most offensive member of our lot, though. So I should give her that. 

Can't say the same for most of the other ones, however. But what would I know? I was just a crazed little fire-starter in here cause I killed a couple people. I wasn't fit to live in society with the rest of the good, Builder fearing women out there.

Not that I much wanted to, either. What was that kind of life, anyway? Life outside was far more crueler, and much more unusual.

I much preferred my life inside the Shalebridge Cradle. Even if it was always cold.

The building we were housed in was old. Older than some of the manors you'd find in Audale. It's rumoured that's what Shalebridge used to be. An old blue blood’s manor, sitting at the edge of the Old Quarter. Now long since abandoned by its noble owners. 

In present times, it's a slowly crumbling fortress holding the City's unwanted. The unloved and casted off. The undesirables no one wanted to deal with, or see on their precious City streets.

The place you can hide your dirty little secrets from the rest of the world. 

That is what Shalebridge housed. The insane. The criminally deranged. Those of us too far gone into our own minds to be able to function in polite society. It also housed the City's Orphans. Those who outlived their families at such a tender age. Or perhaps it was their whore mothers left them on the Cradle's doorstep. Who knows with some of that lot. Never could tell why a kid was here half the time, be it they were unwanted by their flesh and blood. Or they among us, those deemed criminally insane.

The Cradle's history was steeped with blood. There was no escaping it.

From the cobblestones laid at it's base, to the dizzyingly tall staff towers. Every brick was laid on the back of demise and tragedy. Those who entered the building never returned. If they did, they never came back the same. Was never meant to be a place of healing. There was no love, no nurturing, no health, none of it was present here.

It was a place of torment, hatred, anger, and bloodshed. Tainted by us all.

But that was the life we were given. What we had to endure, to keep on living. Locked up behind high walls and kept in tiny rooms. Barely given enough freedom to keep our wits about us. Enough food to keep us on our feet. Enough to do to keep us distracted.

If we weren't being drugged up to our eyeballs. Like Poshtoll usually was. 

He was barely functional most days, if we even got to see him. If he got out of solitary confinement he was an entirely different person. Someone who could manipulate a room of people, and we'd thank him for it. He was, without a doubt, the most dangerous among us.

They should have left him to die up in that tower.

Sometimes they'd forget him up in solitary confinement for days. Other times I'd hear his chains rattle, and his angry screams other times, when I was out in the exercise yard. If you looked up, and squinted, you could see him, up in his tower. Behind barred windows, looking down at us all with disdain and hatred. 

Looking down upon the city with such an insurmountable hatred that it was almost palpable.

I swear, even to this day, I could feel his anger radiating from him up there. It was like a fire, uncontrollable, dangerous, and wildly unpredictable. Perhaps that's why I liked him at first. 

Edward Poshtoll. King No One to us. Patient number One to the "good" doctors. 

He was "The Tallow Man" to the rest of the outside world, however. He was known for the heinous crimes he had committed while he was still a free man. Those very heinous things that had ended up with him committed to an Asylum.

He was one of the City's first real serial killers, claiming the lives of over 30 men and women.

His killings were infamous. Most of us had heard about him in the City Times. The way he killed his victims was sadistic, and cruel. I had limited knowledge on the murders, besides what I had read in the newspapers.

He’d kidnap people. Get them drunk at a tavern or inn, and then take them home. There he’d tie them down and pour hot, melted tallow wax all over their face. Pour it down into their throats, and proceed to burn and suffocate them with the vicious, molten liquid.

It was a grisly way to go. Slow, painful, and would draw out every single moment of agony the person was going through, to the bitter end.

He was a monster. A cruel, sadistic, evil person to his core.

Yet, the rest of us were infatuated with him, enamored by his presence and how put together he seemed. He was the sanest of us all. We hung on every word when he spoke. Like children hanging onto the words of an adult they idolize. He was intelligent, charming, and dangerous.

Utterly dangerous with how he seemed to rally us all together against our orderlies and doctors.

His words were like opium, jarringly addictive, and oh so sweet. That was the first sign of something brewing. At the time, we were too naive to realize what he was doing. 

No one could have predicted how things would have turned out.

None of us knew what we were in for.

The very first thing that happened, that would lead to the Cradle's downfall, was the murder of an orphan girl. Think her name was Lauren or Lauryl or something like that. It was a nasty ordeal all together. Her little friend could barely function after that whole tragedy.

All they found of the girl was a large pool of blood, and splatters of it all over the attic walls.

She had been playing hide and seek with her friend. The kid witnessed everything, and kept going on about a monster. A "Hag" or something like that. At first they thought the kid did it himself, but with his hysterics? They ruled him out. 

The doctors, orderlies and nannies didn't believe him about the hag. Figured it must be one of us in the asylum. They rounded up all of us patients and tossed our rooms but good the next day. All of our scant personal belongings tossed out into the halls.

They found the girl's bloodied nightgown in The Painter's room. 

James Nuvio was already in here for attacking a woman during one of his painting sessions.

His reasoning for the attack? She "moved too much" or some such tripe bullshit like that. 

Unhinged fellow to the very core. Even with his polite mannerisms, you could tell he wasn't all there in the head. His shifty eyes, and twitchy demeanor, made it easy to think he was always up to something foul. Nuvio was like a rat personified, and he looked like one too.

He was also convicted of foul play. Right after the City Watch found buckets of blood, being used as paint, in his little apartment. He was deemed unfit to stand trial, and locked away here.

He had been found to have a fondness for the little girl who died. He had recently painted a full portrait of her, not even two weeks prior. So he was their number one suspect in the murder. 

Though her blood hadn’t been collected. Which wasn’t his method of operation. Nor was her body ever found. Searched high and low, they did, but they never turned up a single piece of the girl. It was like she never existed in the first place.

The other person they suspected was Postholl. The most dangerous out of us lot.

He had already murdered a nurse, named Sorrel. And disfigured another one, her name was Lovewell, while being locked up here. Got them to take his sedatives and then proceeded to butcher them. Lovewell had to wear a mask now because of her face being cut up.

Probably crushed them up and slipped them into their drinks when they weren’t looking, I’d reckon.

He did have an uncanny knack for slipping away and hiding in the shadows. Almost terrifyingly so, at times. It's like he knew the shadows better than any sneak thief. Or perhaps he had spent his life there, and honed his skills. He seemed to be a creature of the night. 

I humoured the notion he was a Pagan monster, masquerading as a human.

The man was a ghost. Never made a sound when walking, and could crop up anywhere. It's why he was flanked by orderlies almost everywhere. Man couldn't even take a piss without one of the muscle bound men who dealt with us, being at his side. I think he even got a sick kick out of it when he could sneak off and terrorize the staff with his absence. 

Any time he could, he would, and it'd cause a frenzy with the medical staff. 

We'd always be ushered back to our rooms, while the building was searched top to bottom for him. It was like a game to him, some sick and twisted game of cat and mouse.

Both of these men were severely punished for the girl's death.

Locked up, barely fed, rarely let out, and ramped up all those “healing” sessions. They got everything done to them and then some. It was supposed to curb their "tendencies" or something like that, overhead one of the doctors mention.

It was torture, that's what it was.

We all suffered the torturous experimental treatments, but those two? They got the worst of it still. We barely saw either of them for a while after that. It wasn't until they were finally let back into the exercise yard for good behavior that we really saw the damages done to them.

Once, I had even overheard Doctor Sandbridge suggest they both might do better with something called a Lobotomy. Doctor Ranker even seconded that idea, but it was Hanscomb who disagreed. Saying they wouldn't learn anything from the men if they just drilled a hole in their heads. 

It would be a waste of "specimens" to study.

I was glad they didn't get a hole drilled in their head. However, looking back, they should have just put Postholl out of his mind proper. 

Made him unresponsive invalid, and then maybe everything wouldn't have gone to hell. 

We'd still have the Cradle, and it's security now, if that was the case.

It happened slowly. So much so that I doubt any of us realized we were being played. 

Postholl started to interact with us more. The King of Nothing himself would sit with us, and talk to us. He'd let us speak about our frustrations, and he slowly, and cleverly, planted the idea of revolt in our heads. 

One by one, he got to us all.

If he could kille a nurse and disfigure another, what could the nine of us inmates do together?

I would see him at times, talking to The Gourmet, Mathias Gunter, or even the Sleepwalker and Cogs. Sebastian Izen and Alexander Solzer, were their names, respectively. Both of them were lovely chaps, who were raised to be proper gents. I had taken a shine to Sebastian, and he seemed to return the feelings. I could count that as a blessing, I suppose.

I always figured if me and Sebastian got out of here, I'd ask him to be my companion. Wasn't gonna wait on a man to propose or nothing like that. Abigail Izen sounded much prettier than Abigail Wrenfield, anyway. 

Didn't want my bastard of a father's name attached to me anymore, and that was a pretty good way out of it.

All of these men were locked up for different and varying reasons. Some of them were benign, others were quite criminal. But what can you expect? Doctors here all thought of us as some kind of rats to experiment on.

Mathias was locked up with us because they thought he was a cannibal. Never found evidence of it, and he just liked to eat a lot. Figured he was just a bottomless pit. That ain't bein' criminal, now, is it? 

He was mostly harmless, and he'd eat anything we gave him that was edible. Most of us handed our morning porridge over to him. The sawdust in it never seemed to bother him too much, really.

That lad had an iron stomach. Could probably eat lightbulbs and not feel anything wrong.

Personality wise? He wasn't interested in people, really. He liked food. The man talked about foreign sounding dishes, with snails or thin butter sauces, like it was a religion. He was pleasant enough, sure. Never was rude, or even impolite to any of us lady folks. Hell, he was down right gentlemanly to us, if a bit awkward and skittish if we so glanced at him.

But his life was dedicated to food. He wrote about, read about, and thought about food, and that's all he cared about. It probably was what was wrong with him. Obsession with creations of new dishes, tastes and smells. About the delight of the five senses.

Didn't think he could be a cannibal, with how gentle he seemed to be otherwise. Couldn't picture him chopping anyone up. Though I knew that looks and personalities were deceiving. That was the case with Postholl and Nuvio, for sure.

Both of them were polite, and sweet outwardly, but hid dark monsters under those facades.

Alexander, or Cogs as we called him, was only here cause he had a nervous breakdown. 

He even admitted himself for treatment. They hadn't planned on keeping him for long, just enough time to relax and get himself together, and back into the working world. However, the reason he was kept on, and kept locked up, is because the doctors did him wrong. 

They gave him electrotherapy by accident. He was worse off than when he came in.

Now he was temperamental and violent, and had mood swings that were uncontrollable. Sure, he was still a gentle soul when he was alright, but his violent outbursts, and his aggressiveness were unpredictable. They had to hide their mistakes, and wrote it up that he had always been like that. 

It was a blatant lie, and his family wasn't having it.

But what could you do? They were backed by the city watch. Alexander had even attacked Valencia at one point for her constant, incessant humming. So they had all the proof they needed to keep their little mistake locked up for the rest of his days. It was a sad, painful truth that he'd never see the outside world again. 

None of us would.

But it was the worst for him. He once had a good life outside of these walls.

He wasn’t like the rest of us, who had come in here from a bad past. He wasn’t any bastard child, or a criminal, or a genuine nut case. He had been a proper working man who had a wife and child. From a good working family, who went to the Builder’s Mass every Sunday.

He was robbed of living out a happy life because of the doctors.

I saw his wife arguing with the staff quite often in the front halls. She demanded to visit him, to see him, to let him come home, anything. They wouldn't have it. It was painful, seeing her be turned away in tears. They even threatened to have her locked up here too, if she didn't stop coming around. 

Something about "Hyper-emotive" and "disruptive personality disorder" or some other made up burrick's shit that Sandbridge used to scare her away.

We never saw her around again. Alex’s mail was burned if he got any. 

After that? The only items he was allowed to keep were his clock making tools. 

He was allowed to work on the electrical bits around the Asylum if he behaved well, and he did. 

As much as he could, at least. All things considered.

I still remember how damn sad he looked when he talked about his life before. He knew. He knew in his heart he'd never see his kids grow up, or live the rest of his days with his wife. I could always hear the pain in his voice, and how he looked at his hands. 

He was officially divorced, by Hammerite Law, a year after he came to be among our ranks. 

Doctor Sandbridge had informed him of that. Seeing as his wife was not being cared for while he was locked up, the Hammerites had officially sanctioned the divorce. 

Never saw a man look so broken inside than I had when 

Sebastian was another odd case. He was, in all rights, a perfectly sane lad. Quiet, bookish, and was a professional scribe before he came to join us. He was admitted for suspicion of murder, but they couldn't find a thing to tie him to the case. 

The only thing wrong with him is that he fell asleep without meaning to.

Heard the doctors call it "Narcolepsy" or some such like that. 

Sebastian also slept and walked, which we had all seen before. It was an odd thing, really, and almost like he was possessed. He passed out at lunch one day, and simply stood up and walked right out of the lunch room. 

Straight down to the morgue. Seemed he wanted to die, and it was understandable.

We all wanted to escape from here. Death would simply be the quickest way out.

But Sebastian and I would sit in the yard and talk. He was well read, and poetic. Seemed too frail for this world, in my opinion. Kind eyes, and a kinder smile. He could smile off just about every bad thing that had ever happened to him.

Told me his life story freely, and it compelled me to do the same. We grew close over the time we were confined together. 

Ended up being quite taken with him at the end. 

But, the most dangerous among all these men was Poshtoll. 

Edward Francis Poshtoll the Second. Youngest son of Lord Poshtoll the First. Some long line of East City nobility that had been here since the very founding. Seventh son of the Seventh son or some burrick’s shit like that. Dark hair, dark eyes, and a dark personality. I didn’t know much about him besides that he had a history of being a problem child. 

The murders were just the last escalation in a long line of offenses. 

And he seemed to keep with the reputation. Even behind bars.

I would always hear him talking quietly to the other men during meal times. Always sounded like he was up to something. Talking in a hushed tone, and his eyes watching the orderlies around the room. Always seemed to have the men enraptured as well. 

They looked like they were clinging to every word he said.

Every now and then I would catch him looking towards me. I could always tell when he was too. Even if I wasn’t looking. His wax mask didn't do much to hide when his eyes were boring a hole into my head. He wouldn’t have the shame to look away when I met eyes with him, either.

I ignored him for the most part. Not much to gain by associating with him.

Pretended to be a daft little fair haired firebug that didn’t talk much. But he saw through that act right quick. Poshtoll wasn’t an idiot. Far from it, in fact. I’d say he was almost deadly intelligent. 

He approached me one evening in the yard. The conversation was, by all accounts, quick and curt. He talked to me like I was an equal. Intelligent, and far more aware of my surroundings than I was given credit for.

It was nice to be seen as something other than a mindless shell. 

At least that's what I thought at the time. I thought, perhaps, Mr. Intelligent, High Society Poshtoll, saw me as an equal. I couldn't have been more wrong at the end of the day. 

In retrospect, I should've known better. Men like that will always have the right thing to say.

I listened to what he had to say, when he finally brought up why he approached me.

He was promising me freedom from this place. 

Now, I was not an easily swayed woman. Sure, freedom and the ability to start a new life, somewhere far away from the city? It sounded promising, but when he brought up a fresh start with Sebastian somewhere, not controlled by doctors…

My attention was caught, and interest piqued, to say the least.

He promised to contact associates of his to help get us out of here. A fresh start somewhere without Sebastian or I’s records to drag us down. Maybe get us over into Blackbrook. He sold me this idea and I ate it up like a child gorging themselves on candy.

The catch? I had to help him convince the women to join in a planned revolt.

I agreed, almost readily. The idea of having a life untainted by this foul city made me hopeful. 

As much as I didn't care for the world outside of the Shalebridge Cradle, I wanted my own life back. The idea of freedom is what swayed me. 

I was a fool to think he had ever meant a word he said. Men like that always know what to say, and how to say it. To make you believe they’ve got the right idea. That they’re the smartest person in the room.

But I did what was asked of me. It’s not like it was a hard feat. I was already in good standing with my lot. The worst of them would be Valencia. Florence and Cordelia were...easily swayed, to put it lightly. There wasn’t much that wouldn’t sway them, I’d wager.

Florence Topper was a bereaved mother, who carried an urn full of ashes. 

Stillborn child. It was a shame, she would have made a damn fine mother. Nurturing, soft voiced, and a gentle hand. She had the full figure for it too. Child rearing hips and ample bosom enough to feed a handful of youngins and then some. Tall, as well, almost as tall as Mathias was. I think she could have looked the man in the eyes without even standing on her tip-toes.

She was admitted because she refused to let go of her child, believing it to still be alive. 

The tragedy of losing something so precious, so fragile...It broke her. 

I pitied the poor woman more than anything. I'd hear her humming lullabies to the urn. She cared for it like it was alive. Staff knew better than to take it from her, as well. Only took one person losing a finger to learn them but good not to take her baby away from her.

When she was forced out of a self induced little bubble of fantasy, she became a bear of a woman. Her weight and height mixed with the rage of a mother? It was a deadly combo I saw more than once in my years here. She was truly frightening in her fits of rage.

Cordelia, on the other hand...She was a young lady, with the mind of a child. 

A child who had witnessed the grisly murder of her parents and family. It’s what I had heard, and gathered from scraps of newsprint I could find. She was the only survivor of a whole house being slaughtered. She had spent days in the company of rotting corpses and brutal displays of torture.

They only found her when the stink from the home had been noticed and the City Watch came knocking. From the one article I had been able to dig up from a long forgotten paper, it was gruesome. They had found her huddled between her parent’s corpses.

I gathered the birds she was so obsessed with where crows. Creatures who had found their way in to feed on the rotting bodies. 

Her room here was done up like the murder scene. Birds painted on her walls, and red paint she had somehow gotten a hold of, splattered across her floor and desk. She had witnessed this atrocious act at a very tender age. She was then dumped here by her remaining family.

Now, she was stuck here, to deal with her nightmares, and be tortured for them.

The biggest problem would be Valencia. Valencia Elliot, Opera House Ballerina. She was locked away here in Shalebridge because she murdered her husband. Never got to hear the grisly details about it besides the fact she used a knife on him. That bit I read in the papers.

The medical staff wasn't permitted to talk about her at all, under strict orders from Doctor Sandbridge himself. She was from a wealthy family, and they wanted to avoid the scandal of a public trial. That much I did know from my eavesdropping and snooping about.

While Valencia herself wasn't a bad person, she thought highly of herself. 

Noble born, high society type who thought she was above us all. The only thing I think that kept her sane was her dancing, and her music. She was allowed to perform for the Orphans once a month, showing them ballet dances, or singing for them. 

Supervised, of course. Despite her being the least violent of us women. 

Even little Cordelia had a nasty streak to her.

Valencia though? Never once had an outburst. She came here calmly, head held high. Never once did I hear her scream, cry, yell, or attack another soul. I swear she was in her right mind, but feigned some kind of issue so she wouldn't get the noose. 

Or perhaps the fact the family's had settled on her being here is what saved her neck.

Though I knew her husband was a real nasty piece of work. Bastard deserved to die. She had told me only a bit, about how he would bruise her in places no one else would see. Or hurt her during their marital times together. He never was kind or gentle or loving as a husband should be. It was only when he started to hit their son that she lost it. 

She told me she didn't regret a thing. I don't blame her.

But I did my best with the girls. I easily convinced Florence and Cordelia, with the promise of being able to make a family together somewhere. I saw how Florence doted on Cordelia, and loved her almost as much as she loved her own stillborn child. Sold them the idea of being able to have a mother, or a daughter, again, with themselves. 

Florence, I swear to the Builder, looked like a lightbulb went off in her head. Don't think she ever realized she had adopted Cordelia unofficially. I don't think Cordelia really understood what I was saying. She clung to Florence with those big eyes, looking as out of it as ever.

They ate the idea up like honey sweetened bread.

It was Valencia who, as I guessed, was being stubborn. It was like pulling teeth with a pitchfork when it came to her. She didn't want to hear about a revolt. She didn't care about freedom or starting over anywhere. It was almost futile, trying to get her to budge.

She had lost it all, and she was perfectly content with that fact. 

It wasn't until I wagered getting her son back into her custody that she listened to me. I saw her weighing her options when I told her she could flee the City with him. 

That Poshtoll had connections in the underground. The Downwinders and the Dockside Wardens. People who'd gladly help her get her son back, and then disappear somewhere else with him. 

Dawnport, Blackbrook, Eastburg, anywhere in the world but here.

She said she'd think about it. That was the best I was going to get out of her.

Poshtoll on the other hand was having far better luck than I was, when it came to the men.

It didn't take much convincing on his part to get the rest of the men on his side at all. All it took was the idea of freedom and revenge. Nuvio and him had been punished for crimes they didn't commit. 

The Painter, Nuvio, wanted revenge on Hanscomb for destroying his artwork. And for submitting him to all those torturous experiments, as well as taking away his telescope.

And it didn't take much to remind Alexander that his wife had abandoned him here. That thought alone made the man angry enough to get on board. Mathias and Sebastian were swayed with the promise of freedom once again, to be able to live their lives once more. 

Eat when they want, sleep when they need it. To not to be reprimanded for simply existing in a way outside of societal norms.

Soon enough, we were all on board, planning our grand escape.

And that's the second thing that would lead to our doom. 

Our dear good leader never thought ahead far enough to foresee the end we would meet. Never thought someone would be smarter than him. Or, perhaps, smart enough to realize what was going on. Perhaps he missed the obvious.

That was his blinding narcissism. Always thought he was the smartest in the room.

We spent days, hiding our medications, feigning good behavior, and doing what was told of us. We had quieted down since the murder of the orphan, and everything seemed to be getting back to normal. 

It took about a month for every one of the nursing staff to stop being on edge. Sandbridge was almost ecstatic with how good our small lot of inmates were.

That's when we decided to strike.

It was a simple enough plan. Cause a large enough distraction that the medical staff would have to leave us alone, or at least leave some of us alone. 

No one was supposed to get hurt in it all, but that's not how it happened. Not at all. But we were all blinded by this grandiose escape plan, none of us ever stopped to question anything.

It was my job to cause a distraction. 

For the last month, I had been sneaking dried twigs, leaves, and other burnables into my room, storing them neatly behind a loose brick in the wall behind my bed. 

They missed it in their monthly searches of our rooms. Others had been doing the same for me, gathering things that I could burn, hiding things in various places all over the White Hall.

It was Cogs who was able to sneak me some matches. He had stolen a box of them when the orderly he was with had been distracted and left him alone. He had, by a stroke of luck, been repairing a light fixture in the storage room. 

He snatched up a box of matches and simply plopped it into his tool box. 

No one was the wiser. He wasn’t the pyromaniac. So it was beneath their notice.

We picked a day that the Orphans would be out of the Nursery Tower. We had all agreed that we didn't want to see a single child hurt during this whole thing. 

The lot of them, along their nannies and governors, were required to attend Hammerite mass every Holy day. It was a weekly, mandatory process.

The church funded the Orphanage, so that was the only strict rule they required.

That's the only good thing the Order of the Hammer ever did, in my book. They took in boys as novices to get them off the streets as soon as they were too old for the orphanage. 

Girls would often become private seamstresses for the Order, as they needed robes for the Novices, Brothers and Clerics of the order. And it happened that most of us girls were taught from a young age how to sew during our stay in their care.

Was an Orphan of the Order myself. Knew enough about Hammerite law that I could be a Brother if I had ever wanted to be. Too bad they didn't accept women into their ranks. 

Even with the high respect they held for the craft of sewing and embroidery as a part of the Master Builder’s plan. Too bad. They'd get a lot more among their ranks if they opened their doors to women.

Heard a rumour they had some kind of Women’s Cloister in some far off place in the mountains. 

Doubted it, though. 

We watched the kids file out from the Cradle's front gates from our spot in the exercise yard that day. Two neat and orderly lines. A row of boys and a row of girls. Governesses holding the babies while they ushered the children along.

They'd be gone most of the day, for their Mass and religious schooling. They'd only return home in time for dinner, and then head to bed. They’d spend a long day at Saint Edgar’s church, learning about the Tenets of the Builder. If they were lucky, they’d also get fed by Priest Callahan. He was a soft man for the children.

Before long, it was time for us to head inside. We were ushered into the building, and we all quietly shared looks among ourselves. There was a nod between Poshtoll and Nuvio, and I glanced towards Valencia. She understood the look, and I think it was then she was finally on board with the idea. It was either she was with us, or she was against us.

It was time. We were going to make our grand escape.

Slowly, we were all herded into the sitting area. It was reading time, and we all took our usual places, sitting on the floor around the fireplace. I looked over towards Poshtoll, who was eyeing up the two orderlies who were present in the room with us. 

They all thought we were drugged up with their sedatives, but that was far from the case.

Halfway into the reading hour, Poshtoll and Nuvio both commented they needed to use the privy. The orderly reading to us rolled her eyes, and ushered for the men to take them to the bathroom. 

I waited for a few moments, before looking over at Florence. Without a word, she got up. In a split second, she brought her stillborn’s urn down upon the female orderly’s head. The sound it made caused me to wince, but that was the orderly taken care of. 

Before anyone could guess what was happening, we were acting.

I ordered Florence and Mathias to keep an eye out for other medical staff. Then Valencia to go and grab my kindling from my hiding place. She was faster and would attract less attention than anyone else here.

Alexander tossed me the box of matches he had hidden in his sleeves. All the while, Sebastian gently pulled the downed nurse off to the side. He looked ashamed of what we were doing, but I paid him no mind. 

It was all at the price of freedom. 

Soon enough, Poshtoll and Nuvio rejoined us, both having bloody splatters across their shirts. 

I looked at Poshtoll, as if to say “that wasn’t a part of the plan.” 

But before I could say anything, he was already getting everyone’s attention. Valencia returned just in time, and handed me the small parcel of kindling. She hadn’t been followed, and most of the staff was either out, or up in the tower. 

The only doctors present that day were Ranker and Sandbridge.

Standing up on a chair, Poshtoll started to speak, his words seeming to take hold of us. His charm, and his anger at our injustice. It swayed us, made our morale grow. Our confidence that we could break out. His voice is what led us towards the ensuing riot, urging us and our oppressed voices to be heard.

We were all so swept up in the grandiose ideal of it all that we followed him to the bitter end.

While Poshtoll lead the others away, I simply walked towards the staff tower stairs. Without a second thought, I grabbed a few of the wooden chairs, books, and my kindling, and set to work. It didn’t take me long to build up a nice little fire at the base of the staff tower. 

I didn’t care for the loud rioting going on behind me as Poshtoll lead his assault on the medical staff. I was going to take my revenge how I pleased: By burning this entire damn building down. 

Starting with the medical staff’s precious sanctuary away from us.

We watched them burn. If they didn’t burn, Poshtoll and Nuvio killed them. It was a bloody, violent, and glorious revolution. That we had won despite the odds being against us. There wasn’t a nurse, an orderly or a doctor left when we were said and done.

But, our luck would run out, as fate would have it. All good things come to an end.

It was only after the fire had swallowed everything that we realized our situation. Our celebration of freedom to come was cut very short. Going through the skeleton of the Cradle, we found ourselves faced with a wall of bars that were blocking us from leaving.

The generators for the bars had failed. Which meant the Portcullis was down permanently. 

We tried for days to get the portcullis open from our side. Trying to find anything that’d work. Trying to bend or melt the bars so we could get through. Chemicals from the treatment rooms, heating elements from the heat therapy chairs. Freedom was so close, but we couldn’t get through the bars. We gave up after a week.

Nothing worked. I think the worst part was knowing we were trapped, and that no one cared.

No one was going to come for us. The Cradle had burned, and to everyone outside, it’s inhabitants as well. The Hammerites were not going to stop by, as they had more pressing issues to deal with than a burned building. 

The City Watch sure as hell wasn’t going to come check out the Cradle to see if anyone was alive. It’d be a waste of time for them. They’d mark everyone off as “died in a fire” and move on with their lives. No one would come looking.

We were on our own now. Left to rot by The City. To be forgotten by everyone on the outside.

Perhaps that was going to be our price to pay for listening to Poshtoll.

That’s the absolute irony of it all.


End file.
